Jack Kamen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jack Kamen is an illustrator who was born May 29, 1920 in Brooklyn, New York. His first professional job was as an assistant to a sculptor doing work for the Texas Centennial. He studied sculpture with Agop Agopoff and was a student of Harvey Dunn, George Bridgman and William C. McNulty. When Kamen attended classes at the Art Students League and the Grand Central Art School, he paid for his studies by painting theatrical scenery, decorating fashion mannequins and creating sculptures.
He was beginning a career as an illustrator for Western and detective pulp magazines when he was called into the Army in 1942. After World War II, he started drawing comic books for Fiction House and Iger Associates, eventually getting assignments from EC Comics to do romance comics. He became one of the most prolific EC artists, drawing crime, horror, humor, suspense and science fiction stories, and was known for his drawings of pretty women. After EC, he did Sunday supplement illustrations and created advertising art for a wide variety of clients: Esquire Shoe Polish, Mack Trucks, Pan American Airlines, Playtex, RCA, Smith Corona, Sylvania.
Kamen's son Dean Kamen is the inventor of the Segway and the iBOT Mobility System. His son Barton is Director of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at The Cancer Institute of New Jersey as well as a Professor of Pediatrics and Pharmacology at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.
